Skywatch Media News for May 13, 2021
A group of scientific experts from NASA and the European Space Agency recently gathered
for a week-long hypothetical exercise which was conducted for the sole purpose of averting
an incoming asteroid that is capable of annihilating Europe.
The exercise involving the international space agencies took place during the final week
of April, but NASA has participated in a total of seven impact scenarios dating back to 2013,
four of which took place at the International Planetary Defense Conferences, and 3 in conjunction
with FEMA including the latest one.
The joint NASA-FEMA exercises have included the participation of other federal agencies,
including the Defense and State Departments.
With the most recent exercise the space agency experts were facing a big dilemma, an asteroid
was detected 35 million miles from Earth which was on a 6 month collision path with our planet,
the main target being the European continent.
Now you may be asking yourself, well this was only a mock exercise, International Space
Agencies has conducted them in previous years, so what's the big deal.
Well as it turned out at the end of this years exercise, which started on April 26, the experts
concluded that our current technology would be unable to avert a major disaster from an
asteroid impact.
You see the whole exercise was initiated to access the global capacity to react to an
asteroid threat with current technologies, and to determine how international agencies
would respond to an actual impact prediction.
Each day of the exercise the participants were given additional information about the
asteroid's size and its trajectory, and how the simulation would take place in a real
life scenario as indicated here for days 1 thru 4 of the exercise.
Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so well at the end of the exercise, as the asteroid
crashed into eastern Europe.
If we learned anything from the recent impact exercise it would be the fact that we are
helpless to avert a catastrophe from space in such a short amount of time, which in this
scenario was six months.
The current state of our technology does not allow for the deployment of a credible space
mission, which means that we are sitting ducks.
But there is a silver lining in the asteroid scenario.
The simulation exercise indicated that its measuring systems are accurate to the extent
that they can pinpoint where an asteroid will strike 6 days in advance, which is meaningful
when it comes to the evacuation of an area where an impact would be expected to occur.
There is one other thing that may be somewhat comforting in this respect, the probability
of an asteroid impact leveling a city, is just a tenth of a percent each year.
It is even lower when taking into consideration the likelihood that an incoming asteroid would
impact the world's oceans, which cover 71% of the Earth's surface, and where an impact
would have a much higher probability.
However, a dilemma persists which explains the main reason for the impact exercises in
recent years, there is an estimated 2/3 of asteroids larger than 460 feet, that are waiting
to be discovered, which means that the Hypothetical scenario played out by space agency experts
at the end of last month has now become a real possibility.
The experts understand this from previous experiences, which is why they hammer home
the need for an improved means of detecting yet unknown asteroids that exist in the darkness
of space.
Back in July of 2019 an asteroid the size of a football field was discovered just 24
hours before passing less then 1/6 the distance between the Earth and the moon.
Shortly after its close encounter NASA officials acknowledged that the asteroid went undetected
until it was right on top of us, and this is why asteroids that sneak up on the Earth
continue to be a major threat to our planet.
In December of 2018 a large meteoroid exploded over the Bering Sea, unleashing 49 kilotons
of energy as it came down crashing on Earth's atmosphere at an estimated 72,000 mph.
The world wasn't even aware of the explosion until well after it was picked up by NASA's
Terra satellite shown here.
Although NASA is devising advanced technological means to avoid a real life scenario with dangerous
asteroids, its latest exercise indicates that we are ill equipped to avoid a catastrophic
asteroid event.
With current technology, spotting a Near Earth Object comes down to whether we have a telescope
pointing in its direction.
In an effort to remove the blind spot produced by the brightness of the Sun from behind the
asteroid, NASA is developing a surveyor spacecraft which they plan to deploy in 2025.
The surveyor will be able to detect 90% of asteroids that are 140 meters or larger in
size.
That still leaves a good percentage of asteroids that will remain undetected.
Thankfully, there is time on our side, and the technology is moving at a rapid pace.
So Stay tuned.
Have you taken notice of the strange and rare atmospheric anomalies that are appearing not
only on Earth, but also on the planet Mars, the images and videos are astounding, as you
will see.
Stay Safe Everyone, Thanks for watching, and keep looking up to the sky, cause that's where
it all is.